Citizens must ‘pipe up’

One grows weary of the corrosive and contemptuous tone in Tom Fletcher’s oped which attempts to bring shame to the voices of municipal governments speaking on issues outside their jurisdiction.

Recently Burnaby, Vancouver, Victoria and New Westminster denounced the proposed expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Pipeline because the Harper Conservative Government has blatantly promoted tar sands expansion at the expense of Canadians most affected.

Kinder Morgan and Enbridge have tried to calm fears by claiming that the risks of a spill are low and that there are funds in place to pay the spill response costs. Neither statement is entirely true. The risk of a catastrophic oil spill will more than quadruple with the increased tanker traffic. Experience from the Kalamazoo River has proven that the diluted bitumen (dilbit) from tar sands behaves very differently from conventional oil, making “cleanup” impossible.

Tom Fletcher is essentially asking the people of the Salish Sea and those living along pipelines to put their health, livelihoods and environment at risk and to be prepared to pay.